Sad as it is, my camera has been grossly neglected. To make up for a lack of crappy photography, here’s a small sample of crappy photos from the small batch of crappy photos taken over the summer. Also: No sir, I don’t like it.

Bear in mind that this list is for the following five days (via EB): Dog’s Life Guilty Gear X2 #Reload Syberia II Gradius V Call of Duty: United Offensive Advance Guardian Heroes ShellShock: Nam ’67 Sly 2: Band of Thieves Fable The Sims 2 Gungrave: OD F-Zero: GP Legend That’s not even the complete list. To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more loaded release day for games (September 14th). Such an overloaded release schedule makes me…

Apartment hunting is an annoying, annoying task. You spend time and money to get yourself half-way across the city to scope out an apartment… only to be greeted by a really stubborn lock that required a coating of WD40 to open. And if that wasn’t enough, greeting you within that apartment is a nice dead mouse. “Yeah, I don’t think this place is for me.” Which was too kind of a thing to say. By suburban standards, the area was…

In the last week and a half, I have played through Astro Boy: The Omega Factor two and a half times. This is actually a fault of the game. You have to go through everything twice — and repeat certain parts some more in an annoying fetch quest — before you can finally get to the true end of the game. There are some interesting variations in the second play-through, but they are all story related (it’s done in a…

It’s late August. It’s the summer. The Summer Olympics are still going full steam. Naturally, it’s the perfect time to start thinking… hockey! The World Cup of Hockey is especially important this year as it might be the highest level of hockey that we will see for a long time. While Canada has lost its first exhibition match to the USA, it’s worth remembering that the Canadians are terribly slow starters in international tournaments. It’s also an exhibition game, so…

Jaws, the “classic” for the Nintendo Entertainment System, is one of my guilty nostalgic pleasures. The game wasn’t particularly grand and the movie tie-in was loose at best, but there was a certain thrill to sailing the seas and, uh, collecting conch shells. Conch shells that you could trade in to buy a submarine. Ok, so it wasn’t particularly good either, but when you’re that age you have to deal with the cards you have been dealt. And at that…

You have to admit that since the launch of the GameCube, Nintendo’s marketing strategy has become far more savvy. The “Who Are You?” campaign was the one that kick-started it all. I liked those ads, and while I don’t know how much they have contributed to Nintendo’s sales numbers (if at all), I have no doubt that they are helping to restore some of Nintendo’s tarnished public image. I like the current GameBoy campaign too, especially the NES Classics ad.…

Dudes. I just so totally bought all six Cowboy Bebop DVDs. It was a real spur of the moment indulgance, but at 40% off I couldn’t pass it up. I’m not sure how many days this sale on Bandai DVDs has left, so if you have the slightest bit of an itchy trigger-finger on this kind of shit, I advise you not to follow that link. Especially if you have Cowboy Bebop in your crosshairs. Those other animes? I know…

I’ve always liked the Winter Olympics best. They’re more focused and the events are more interesting than the Summer equivalents. Nonetheless, there are a few events in the Summer that are worth a bit of attention. So, Mike Nowak’s Events Most Worth Watching at the Summer Olympics (for various reasons): Boxing Canoe/Kayak Slalom (white water) Cycling, Track (short sprint and individual pursuit) Beach Volleyball* Athletics (100m, 200m, 110m hurdles) Additionally. Events that might be cool but I have no idea…

A while ago, it was announced that Hubble might not be serviced anymore. It will eat through its remaining battery power and become an orbiting piece of junk. Scientists cried. A lot. So, not too long ago, there came news that NASA was reconsidering. Since the shuttle is grounded, sending a manned crew up there to fix it is pretty much out of the question. The news over the last week has been that NASA is considering sending up a…

In the same vein as CBC’s 1993 story A Network Called “Internet”, there are three new retro computing talk-show clips posted to archive.org: Battle of the Browsers, from 1997; Spreadsheet Wars from 1988; and DOS to Mac and Back from 1989. I love retro-geek stuff like this. Unfortunately, the clips are two gigs each so I won’t be seeing them anytime soon. Consider this a “save it for later” post. (Edit: the Spreadsheet Wars clip has a smaller, low-res version.…

ha! Kidding. I can barely run Half-Life. The likes of Doom 3’s combined texture powers will, quite likely, cause my laptop’s good ole’ CPU to implode. The hype — the massive, massive amount of unnecessary hype — has left me thinking about an upgrade. But not for Doom. What I’ve seen of the game isn’t worth spending hundreds of dollars for. Not when you can just rent Riddick or something (at least that game has a gun with an attached…

The last week and a half was brutal. During that time, I worked through the weekend, worked late hours and, er, even later hours. I’d have been stuck downtown (or at least forced to take a really expensive cab) on Thursday at 2am had it not been for some saving graces (thanks!). The worst part of this period is that throughout it all, I had an annoying and painful tooth ache. Once the four day long weekend hit, my first…